Love & Friendship
In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon is Entirely Vindicated - Now a Whit Stillman film
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- £2.99
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
***THE NOVEL OF THE HIT INDIE FILM***
'If, like me, you like your Austen subversive, cruel, funny and outrageous, then you will love Stillman's Love & Friendship' The Times
'Lady Susan is finally getting some long overdue respect' New York Times
'Lady Susan remains deliciously wicked' Vogue
With a pitch-perfect Austenian sensibility and wry social commentary, filmmaker and writer Whit Stillman cleverly re-imagines and completes one of our greatest writers' unfinished works. Love & Friendship is a sharp comedy of manners, and a fiendishly funny treat for Austen and Stillman fans alike.
JANE AUSTEN'S FUNNIEST NOVEL IS ALSO HER LEAST KNOWN - UNTIL NOW.
Impossibly beautiful, disarmingly witty, and completely self-absorbed: meet Lady Susan Vernon, both the heart and the thorn of Love & Friendship. Recently widowed with a daughter who's coming of age as quickly as their funds are dwindling, Lady Susan makes it her mission to find them wealthy husbands - and fast. But when her attempts to secure their futures result only in the wrath of a prominent conquest's wife and the title of 'most accomplished coquette in England', Lady Susan must rethink her strategy.
Unannounced, she arrives at her brother-in-law's country estate. Here she intends to take refuge - in no less than luxury, of course - from the colorful rumors trailing her, while finding another avenue to 'I do'. Before the scandalizing gossip can run its course, though, romantic triangles ensue.
A SPECIAL EDITION FEATURING JANE AUSTEN'S ORIGINAL NOVELLA AS ANNOTATED BY THE NARRATOR.
PRAISE FOR LOVE & FRIENDSHIP THE FILM
'A RACY DELIGHT' Guardian *****
'FIND ME A FUNNIER SCREEN STAB AT AUSTEN, AND I'M TEMPTED TO OFFER YOUR MONEY BACK PERSONALLY' Telegraph *****
'TREMENDOUSLY WITTY' Independent *****
'MAY JUST BE THE BEST JANE AUSTEN FILM EVER MADE' London Evening Standard *****
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Stillman (The Last Days of Disco) cleverly reimagines a little-known Jane Austen character, Lady Susan Vernon from the unpublished novel Lady Susan, following her doting nephew's attempt to clear Aunt Susan's name and restore her reputation. Lady Susan, a recent widow, spends a few months with friends until gossip of a romantic scandal sends her fleeing to her brother and sister-in-law. Marriage plots abound for both Lady Susan and her young daughter, Frederica, as she seeks to establish secure matches that guarantee they will both be well cared for, but it is the means by which Lady Susan procures these proposals that call her character into question. Her sister-in-law, Catherine Vernon (n e DeCourcy), and the DeCourcy family are convinced by the gossip surrounding Lady Susan and fear that she means to use her wit and beauty to marry into their family via Catherine's brother, Reginald DeCourcy. A cast of suitors, friends and otherwise, add perspective and dimension to Lady Susan's true motives, and the narrator of the account, Lady Susan's nephew, Martin Rufus Martin-Colonna de Cesari-Rocca, brings both quirky and hilarious flavor to Stillman's story. Martin's commentary and frequent interjections, particularly his thoughts on original author Jane Austen (referred to as the Spinster Authoress), serve as both comedic social commentary and a glimpse into the trivial dramas of the English aristocracy.
